Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #591

Background

It used to be the case that many people knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.
Numerous other super-heroes had discovered the secret long before the
unmasking at the end of Civil War #2. Among these heroes were the
Fantastic Four and, notably, Johnny Storm, who became a good friend to Peter
both in and out of his costume. When knowledge of Spider-Man's secret identity
was erased from the world, Johnny forgot all about it too... until now. A return
trip to the macroverse has convinced the Torch that there were things he used
to know that he cannot simply recall. He wants answers and, despite the fact
that our heroes are in the middle of an extra-terrestrial warzone, he aims to
get them.

Johnny looks up at the unmasked Spider-Man in disbelief. He can't see a thing.
Sue has made Spidey invisible, and attacks Johnny at completely betraying the
trust Spider-Man has shown in them. But what trust? Spider-Man shared secret
identity with them and then took that knowledge back. That doesn't seem very
trustworthy.

Reed finds it all a bit hard to swallow. He voices some of the concerns that
many Spider-Man readers have been having for the last year. In order for his
identity to be completely forgotten, Spider-Man would have to wipe the
memories of everyone on Earth including telepaths and magic users, not to
mention destroy or alter all the physical evidence. How could someone with
Spider-Man's resources accomplish such a thing?

The "mindwipe" issue is timetabled much to the Torch's chagrin, and our heroes
enter the battle against the dinosaur-riding Dregans. Patronus also enters the
fray against the Dregans. He is amazed that the five "gods" his antecedents
worshipped spend their time bickering like school children. After the Dregans
are defeated, he confronts our heroes.

He says that he has been fighting the Dregans all his life. It has been
a "lifetime" since the five were last here and started this war. Reed explains
that although it has been two years since they were last in the macroverse,
time here moves more quickly - and what is more the difference between the two
worlds is increasing exponentially. Sue fears for her children. This doesn't
make a lick of sense, by the way, but take it as read for the moment and we
can have a chat about it in the comments below.

Spider-Man is aghast. Just how much time is passing in the real world, for
every moment they are standing around the macroverse? Reed reveals that for
every hour that passes in the macroverse, thirteen and one third days pass on
Earth. Even in the short time they have been here, they've already lost a
month! As Reed explains, we flash back to events with Spider-Man's supporting
cast. What's happening with them?

Carlie and Harry: On Tuesday, Carlie is at Harry's apartment clearing
up all the empty bottles and getting the drunk and depressed Harry out of bed.
A week the following Saturday she's going with him to A.A. meetings, and by
the next Thursday he's opening up to her about Lily and his own feelings of
foolishness and inadequacy. Three days later, he and Carlie are in a cafe
celebrating Harry's first thirty days clean and sober. They seem to be getting
really close. Are they holding hands?

Jonah and Marla: On Tuesday, Jonah is at his estranged wife's door,
he's blustering and shouting and demanding that she resume the marriage. But
by a week the following Saturday, he's changed his tune and is trying to woo
her with flowers and honeyed words (being Jonah, he's not very good at it). By
the following Thursday, he has resorted to desperate pleading, and he
determines to sit by the front door until Marla agrees to see him. That takes
three days, but she eventually deigns to go to a restaurant with the old
skinflint.

Norah and Randy: On Tuesday, at the offices of the Front Line
Norah is looking for Peter. In Peter's absence, Robby decides to introduce the
reporter to his son, Randy. The two hit it off, and as time progresses they
become progressively more intimate. Wait a minute. You can't remember who
Norah is? Go back and read Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #575 and stop
goofing off.

Jonah Jameson Snr and Aunt May: You remember that Betty gave Jonah's
dad Aunt May's number in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #583, right? On
Tuesday he finally plucks up the courage to make her acquaintance. As time
passes they get closer and closer, and go an increasing number of dates,
culminating in a dinner in a swanky restaurant. Seems that JJ Senior
inadvertently poaches his son's table reservations.

A month has already gone by? Spidey wants to return to Earth now. However, he
is quickly convinced that he and the FF need to stay and sort out the problems
between these two races that they inadvertently caused two years ago. Patronus
has a plan to end the fighting. He needs these "gods" to get him into the
audience chamber of the Dregan royal family. Once there her is convinced that
he can end things peacefully.

With the power of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, the Dregans don't stand
much of a chance. But the Torch continues to lay into Spidey. Eventually,
Peter completely loses it. He just can't afford his secret identity to get out
any more. Not now, not with Norman Osborn in charge of everything. He has to
protect his real friends, and his real family. He misses them. You know what?
I do too. Let's check in on them again:

Peter's answering machine is really filling up in his absence, as are a
succession of problems that our hero will have to deal with on his return .
Ben Urich calls ask Peter to cover the under-attended mayoral rally between
everyone's favourite philanthropist, Martin Li, and Walter Declun (corrupt CEO
of Damage Control). His realty company rings to tell him a problem with the
lease on the apartment (it's in Vin's name). It looks like low circulation
figures may cause Dexter Bennett to lose the DB!.

It also looks as though Jonah's reconciliation with Marla was just a ruse. He
needed to present the view of a stable home life for his "backers". What
backers? Backing him for what? Betty Brant is going to be mad that Peter
missed Flash's sadly wheel-chair bound sporting prowess. And Aunt May is
desperately trying to get in touch with her nephew, so he can meet JJ
Senior.

Then there's the last message on the machine: "Hey Tiger, I... I thought you
should know I'm..." Which is of course where the machine runs out of space. Glad
to see the Parker luck is still running close to form.

Meanwhile, back in the Macroverse, our heroes deliver Patronus to the Dregan
royal family where he reveals that he is half-Dregan (to prove it, he shows
off his pink mohican). Suddenly Patronus is the king of both cultures and the
way is over. The reader shares Spider-Man's general boredom with the plot, and
everyone heads back to the FF's space ship.

One onboard, Reed questions Spidey about his secret identity. Unable to lie to
the Marvel Universe's big brain, Spider-Man admits that Johnny is right, but
it isn't really a mindwipe, it's a psychic blindspot. Even if you had a
mountain of evidence that led to the conclusion Peter Parker was Spider-Man,
you wouldn't connect the dots. Or rather, you would draw the wrong conclusion.
Which explains why Eddie Brock, Norman Osborn and new pre-pubescent Kraven
never realised the truth when it was staring them right in the face.

Spidey says that the only way the spell can be broken is if he is unmasked, or
he unmasks for someone. The Torch urges Spidey to do just that, they're all
friends. Where's the harm? Spidey says that he's sorry, but he just can't risk
it. Not again, there's too much at stake. Fortunately, Reed thinks of a way
around this. He can create "psychic firewalls" for the rest of the Fantastic
Four. They can know Spider-Man's secret, and keep it as well.

And thus, Spidey unmasks before the Fantastic Four. It is a touching reunion
of old friends. But it is brief. Because our heroes are back in the real
world, and two months have passed. Spidey swings off to find out what has been
happening in the Marvel Universe without him. As it turns out... quite a
bit.

A crowd has gathered to hear the results of the special election held to vote
in the city's new mayor. It's an all too familiar face: J. Jonah Jameson!

General Comments

I really don't know what to make of this issue. This comic was released a
little after New Avengers #51, although it's set before. In that issue,
Peter reveals his secret identity to his fellow Avengers, in this issue he
reveals it to the Fantastic Four. So what exactly has been the point of the
last three years of Spider-Man comics?

We've gone from a situation where a number of super-heroes know Spidey's
identity, through everyone knowing Spidey's identity, and no-one knowing
Spidey's identity, and now we're back to where we started again. Was this
always the intention? Is the whole thing just a plot against Daredevil, who
now seems to be the only hero who doesn't know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker?

I thought I would like this direction for the comic, but now that it has
arrived I have to say that it's leaving a rather bitter taste in my mouth.
Marvel can't keep doing this. They can't keep setting up stories and the
backing down, chickening out or retconning their way out of them. Spidey lived
a whole other life in the House of M? Forgotten. Spidey gains new powers?
Ignored. Spidey reveals his identity to the world? Retconned. Spidey makes his
identity secret again? Swept aside.

It is as frustrating as it is disappointing. Are Marvel saying that the
preferred the status quo before Civil War, they just weren't keen on Aunt May
knowing Spidey's identity, and on Mary Jane existing at all? If that was the
case, then why drag us through all these pointless stories? The JMS run on
Amazing Spider-Man post-Skin Deep wasn't really that good. At the
time Joe Quesada said that the events that spun out of Civil War gave writers
the potential to tell great stories. Yes, Joe, they certainly did: but where
were those great stories? I remember them being set up, but I don't actually
remember anyone delivering them.

As I predicted, we don't actually find out how Spider-Man concealed his
identity in this issue, beyond the fact that it's a "psychic blindspot". We
are meant to assume that Mephisto pulled this off on Spidey's behalf, but
hopefully there is more to it than that. I hope they don't keep us waiting
very long for the real answers.

Spidey says that when he reveals his identity to someone, that
someone "remembers everything". So how much do the FF remember now? Sure they
remember that Peter is Spider-Man, but what about MJ? They met her, they even
went on holiday with her with Aunt May. Do they remember that? Does Reed
remember being unable to save Aunt May from an assassin's bullet? I have faith
enough in Slott to believe he has thought this through. I'm interested to see
where this goes.

This issue is credited with three different pencillers. Ordinarily this would
start alarm-bells ringing, but this issue uses the different art styles very
effectively: with Dale Eaglesham drawing the scenes set on Earth, and Barry
Kitson drawing the scenes in the macroverse.

In fact the flashbacks to Earth are the best thing about this issue,
particularly the way in which first selection interconnect. Norah and Randy
pass the window of the coffee shop where Carlie and Harry are sitting. The
scene where JJ Snr accidentally steals his son's dinner reservations was
definitely snigger-worthy.

But in a wider sense, these scenes bother me. Now I know that the special
election couldn't be an ongoing plot in the title. We've just suffered through
fifty issues of the mayoral race bubbling away in the background. Another
fifty issues would have been narrative suicide: something the writers and the
editors wisely saw. But spinning the timeline on two months - regardless of
how imaginatively it was done - feels as though the writers are simply bored
with their old stories and want to wrap them up as quickly as possible.

Peter is not there for Harry and Flash, therefore he suddenly has their enmity
again. JJJ is the new mayor of New York. Dexter Bennett looks as though he's
going to lose the DB. Aunt May and JJ Snr are trysting. This just
smacks of rearranging the scenes between series. It is as though this arc is
both the epilogue for Brand New Day season one, and the prologue for Brand New
Day season two. And I don't really like that.

Then finally there is Reed's techno-babble goof. Many years have passed in the
two years that Spidey and the FF came to the macroverse. So time in the
macroverse runs more quickly than time in the real world. However, now every
hour they spend in the macroverse corresponds to thirteen days in the real
world. This means that time runs more quickly in the real world now.

It's a mistake, and one that Stephen Whacker and Dan Slott have the good grace
to set straight on the letters page in Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #593.
It's always good to see someone admit their mistakes, and very satisfying to
see them set it right in such an entertaining fashion. Whatever else I may
have said about this issue, there can be no doubt that Whacker and Slott love
Spider-Man, and take their role as stewards of this book very seriously. I
commend them for that.

Overall Rating

I'm glad the secret identity plot has finally moved forward, although I'm not
sure about wisdom of having Pete reveal his identity at all. Many of the new
plots have potential, but the two-month jump seems a bit lazy to me. On the
whole, Slott's shifting narrative and Eaglesham's pencils stop this from being
a disaster. Two webs.